Everyday Art: Day 2

i love summer

     Alright, day two and I'm getting the art for today in just under the wire I think, at least for my time zone. It is an ATC, "i love summer." We have had some glorious days and I wanted to commemorate them with an artful keepsake. So much sunshine, I wish we had it all year. I will probably continue to add to this piece, I can't seem to stop messing around with collage based art. The details: created with CARAN d'ACHE  Neocolor II Watersoluble artist crayons (I am sooo addicted to these, wish I owned every single color!), Sharpie markers, PITT markers, gel pens, a transparent bingo marker and a rhinestone. Also scraps of magazine pages for the edges. It measures the same size as a playing card, which is the typical ATC size. It did take some time to create, so I realize that I will have to create other pieces of quicker art some days. Wheels are spinning...

Fresh Veggie Pizza

     I also made a wonderful fresh veggie pizza for dinner, and it was very creative, so it is my bonus "art" today. I love the ones that are always made at the Pampered Chef home parties, which I have not been to or even been  invited to in years. I decided to make up my own recipe, but it started the same as the ones I've had at the parties, with refrigerated crescent roll dough, unrolled, but kept as a sheet and baked. I added an herb cream cheese and sour cream topping, followed by lots of fresh veggies. It satisfied a huge veggie craving and I didn't feel too guilty since the topping was made with 1/3 less fat cream cheese. Tomorrow I know I'll be making enchiladas and Spanish rice, but have no idea what other art I'll be creating, wish me luck!
   One last thing, I read a wonderful book yesterday, "City of Thieves," and it was incredible! A great summer read if you are looking for something exciting, fun, and sad with great historical content. I couldn't put it down and stayed up late just to finish it. There are a few "difficult" parts, but necessary to the story. I can't say enough good things about this book, but I don't want to give anything away. I can't wait to pass it around to family and friends, 5 out of 5 stars!

Baseball and Fireworks

Me and Hubby at the Ballgame

     We went to the last regular game of the Traverse City Beach Bums baseball season tonight. What a blast! Baseball is my favorite spectator sport, I just love sitting in bleachers or other seats and taking it all in. The weather tonight was perfect, cool, sweatshirt type stuff. We took the kids, including the two teens who wanted nothing to do with the game last week, and they had a great time too. The ball park was packed to the gills. Lots of families, and they made an announcement at the end of the game, which we won, that an attendance record was broken tonight, how cool is that? Over 8,000 fans were there. The Beach Bums also made it into the playoffs for the first time ever, so there will be a couple extra home games next weekend and we hope we can get tickets. After the game, they let all the kids ages 5-12 run the bases, which took about an hour because every kid wanted to get on the field and do it. After that, it was dark and they had a spectacular fireworks show, really wonderful. They normally have fireworks after every Friday night home game, but since this was the last game of the regular season, they had one. It was so much fun cheering with the crowd, watching my kids enjoy themselves and watching the game too. My hubby and I took a picture together, in our shades. You can see what a good time we were having. It was really a perfect end of summer evening with my family. It was good to take a break from my school work and play, I needed it more than I thought! Life is good.

Orange ATC Swap Part ll, End of Summer and School

     This is the ATC I sent for the Orange challenge this month. I created it using all the visual journal techniques I learned in Teesha Moore's class in July. Lots of layering of paint, collage, artist crayons, markers and gel pens. I had a ball making it too. As I said earlier, I was not a big fan of orange when I was younger, which is an understatement. But I love it now and love working with it in jewelry, beads, visual journal and now ATCs.
     Summer has been flying by, but I feel that way every year in August. It actually came early this year, started at the end of April, which is normally unheard of in these northern Michigan parts. I'm grateful for it, the winters are hard on me. I don't have arthritis or other physical health issues, but mentally, I seem to get somewhat depressed. And this is in direct correlation to the length of the winter season and lack of sunlight. Some years are worse than others. I've got my fingers crossed though. I'll be in school this winter, like last winter and that made a huge difference.
     And speaking of school, classes start today, I'm soooo excited, feel like an 18 years old college student again instead of a 44 year old. I always loved school and learning, that hasn't changed a bit. Today, I have and art class, "2D Design." Got the required art supplies, parking permit, bottled water and even a snack bar. I'm prepared and spinning like a top, mentally. So more about today later, time to hit the road and get my education on!